Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Seniors at UC Berkeley, the nation's premier public university, got an F in their basic knowledge of American history, government and politics in a new national survey, and students at Stanford University didn't do much better, getting a D.

Out of 50 schools surveyed, Cal ranked 49th and Stanford 31st in how well they are increasing student knowledge about American history and civics between the freshman and senior years. And they're not alone among major universities in being fitted for a civics dunce cap.

Other poor performers in the study were Yale, Duke, Brown and Cornell universities. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore was the tail-ender behind Cal, ranking 50th. The No. 1 ranking went to unpretentious Rhodes College in Memphis.

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The study was conducted by the University of Connecticut's department of public policy and the nonprofit education organization Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Researchers sampled 14,000 students at 50 schools, large and small.

The aim was to determine how well the colleges are teaching their students the basics of government, politics and history -- the bedrocks of good citizenship.

Beyond the rankings, the study found that across the board -- from elite universities to less-selective colleges -- the typical senior did poorly on the civics literacy exam, scoring below 70 percent. This would be a D or F on a basic test using a conventional grading scale.

That shows, the researchers said, that the students don't have -- and the universities generally aren't teaching -- the basic understanding of America's history and founding principles that they need to be good citizens.

It is a crisis, the report warns.

"It is at a point in history in this country where it has probably never been more important," said Eugene Hickok, a former U.S. deputy secretary of education and a member of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. "The study tells us we have a rising generation of bright, intelligent citizens that won't have the knowledge they need to be informed citizens. We are really only a generation or two away from a republic in pretty big trouble."

The study was conducted in 2005 by asking freshmen and seniors to answer 60 multiple-choice questions in the subject areas of American history, government, America and the world, and the market economy.

It then compared the averages from the two classes at each school to determine how much more seniors knew than freshmen -- indicating how well the university was doing in increasing student knowledge.

The survey found that more than half of students could not correctly identify the century (the 17th) when the first American colony was established at Jamestown.

A majority of students also could not identify the Baath party as the main source of Saddam Hussein's political support in Iraq.

At UC Berkeley, the results showed freshmen knew more than soon-to-graduate seniors. Freshmen scored an average of 60.4, and seniors scored an average of 54.8. That earned Cal a failing grade, the researchers said.

At Stanford, freshmen scored an average of 62.2 percent, and seniors scored an average of 63.1 percent. The difference between the freshmen and seniors was minimal, which the study's authors say shows they are not being taught the content during college.

In comparison, at Rhodes College, the freshman average was 50.6 percent and the senior average 62.2 percent. Even though the Rhodes seniors scored lower than Stanford's, the researchers concluded Rhodes was doing a better job because of the percentage of improvement shown.

"This is something that if the colleges and universities teach it, the students will learn," said Professor Christopher Barnes, director of project development for the University of Connecticut's department of public policy.

Barnes said that one encouraging finding of the study was that knowledge of civics was closely tied to voting and community engagement. But that is also alarming, he said, if the nation's students do not learn more about history and politics.

History and political science leaders at UC Berkeley and Stanford took issue with the methodology of the study and its rankings but agreed that students weren't learning enough of the important basic historical and civics lessons.

"There may be real issues here about how universities should organize their curriculum, but there is a scandal-mongering aspect to the way this survey has been presented," said Professor David Hollinger, chairman of the UC Berkeley history department. "I would not assume that this is a credible survey without more scrutiny."

Still, he said, UC Berkeley -- like most large universities -- has relatively few requirements for undergraduates, even within the College of Letters and Science. He believes that should change.

"I do not doubt that Americans would be better off knowing more history than they do," Hollinger said. "And I do not doubt that Berkeley would be wise to consider requiring more history than it does."

The study found that civics learning was greater at colleges and universities that required students to take courses in American history, political science and economics. For example, seniors at the institutions ranked the highest for increase in knowledge -- Rhodes College and Colorado State University -- took an average of 4.2 history and political science courses, while seniors at the bottom two, UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, took an average of 2.9 such courses.

Professor Terry Moe, chairman of the political science department at Stanford, also questioned the study's methodology, saying that many factors can affect the outcomes, including the fact that many students at schools like Stanford specialize in areas such as science, engineering and math. In addition, he said, less-selective schools lose a lot of students after their freshmen year, leaving a pool of higher-quality students who make it through all four years and thus may score better than the more diverse pool of freshmen.

But he said, it is true that Stanford focuses more on teaching theory and critical-thinking skills than facts. The teaching of facts and historical dates is considered "old-fashioned" in academe, he said.

"There is a basic knowledge that students should learn, and I think that universities don't think that way," he said. "My view is that they should."

Among the key recommendations in the report are that colleges and universities increase the number of required history, political science and economics courses, improve their assessments of what students are learning, and build academic centers on campus to encourage and support the "restoration" of teaching American history and civics.

Highs and lows

The University of Connecticut's survey ranked 50 colleges on how well they increase student knowledge about American history, government and politics between the freshman and senior years.

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